learning to be afraid
fear is what's preventing academic performance, and ignoring it won't help
I can’t think of much else these last few weeks. I’m sick for any child experiencing violence they can’t understand.
There are drafts for three posts I’d been excited for languishing in Notion, chock full of citations and counterpoints. This piece will not be like those drafts.
I want to tell you what it’s like to be afraid at school.
I can’t speak as a teacher or a researcher in this area, but I can tell you what it was like to be me. 30+ years have made some of the details fuzzy. I have my journals, a good therapist, news clippings and my parents but even then some of the details don’t always match up. I hope you’ll forgive me that.
What I’ll share is what I remember and if you wonder what will happen to kids who are constantly afraid at school, that might be more useful anyway.
I haven’t said much before because my experience, sickeningly, is not as bad as what many kids endure. You don’t need to move across the country or around the world to know hate and fear, unfortunately. My intent is not to tell every story, to speak on every type of terribleness a kid can experience, or to start a spitting match over who’s got it worse.
My growing fear is that little brains can’t differentiate between what’s happening at their school to them and their friends, and what’s far away but constantly surrounding them in media. I think the scary things that DO happen in their school get muddied up with far away things and without help, they become the same thing. I thank heaven I did not have the news or social media pressing in on me in addition to what I actually lived, because more and more I see the same fear in little faces that I felt so many years ago. I also see more of the consequences.
It’s hard to imagine a child carrying fear that they might die or be badly hurt at school, or that everything they love is under threat while they are away from home.
I hope you read this and realize that little minds take in more than we think, hide it better than we assume, make incorrect assumptions and carry it in ways that mark us forever.
The right thing to say here is “I don’t want to get political” and leave any mention of the catalysts for the fear out of the discussion and that’s part of the problem. The activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power is exactly what causes most hate in the world. So, unfortunately for all us who like to be liked, if we’re going to talk about fear in school, politics are front and center.
Kids need to learn how things are
My first experiences with fear at school were centered on the still very vibrant racial divide in the deep south. Divide is a soft word for open hatred of Black people, and because no adult ever explicitly defined racism to 7-year-old-me I got my best friend and I marked as targets on the playground.
Maybe you’ve felt the tingle in the deepest, oldest parts of your brain when there’s of circle of hate surrounding you and closing in. If you haven’t, you can imagine all the heroic things you’d do besides hug you best friend and huddle together in ball until the adults come. Adults who aren’t in a hurry, and won’t report any of this to your parents because kids need to learn how things are. And how things are meant my bestie and I would spend the rest of the year afraid of the boys who surrounded us, afraid of the teachers who ignored us, and afraid of lunch and the playground.
I became a rigid rule follower and enforcer of justice. If the tiniest infraction against “fair” took place without a reaction from adults, I’d have a meltdown that caused disruption to the classroom experience. The romanticized version of this story is a kid fighting -ist adults for the rights of others. Reality: I was in the middle of that circle too, and self preservation is a strong motivator and not nearly as noteworthy. This behavior stayed with me long after we moved away from this school, and my new teachers had no back story to explain it.
If you’ve worked with me and labeled me inflexible in some situations I most likely thought we were tipping the scales against someone who couldn’t fight back. Even 40 years later, that old part of my brain still tingles. But as an adult, I refuse to wait for someone else to come. I will be that person, even if it’s clunky or emotional or costs me politically in the office. It also means that sometimes when I try to support on social media or other places it’s self centering or angry. That fear can grab you when you least expect it, and won’t let go.
Over the years, I’ve invested heavily in executive coaching and therapy and learned better ways to channel the fear and the urge to right the wrongs. However, that initial feeling will never stop happening. If you are 7 when you first experience intense fear in a place that should be safe, your brain bookmarks it as a very important thing to know about the reality of the world.
Interesting aside- I went back to this school on a business trip. I’d been doing drop in sales visits all day and imagined a full circle moment where I sold an equity based product to the new principal 40 years later. Instead, I got out of the car and smelled the magnolias and froze. I was back in the middle of the circle on that playground. We’d all like to hear how I overcame it and went in. I did not.
Unfortunately, the way things are won that day.
That’s a problem for the grownups.
From this place, we moved overseas. I was 11. By this time, I was afraid of nearly everything around me and talked like a 50 year old litigation attorney. This was seen as sort of adorable and quirky as long as I didn’t bother the adults at school.
The problem was I DID bother the adults at school. One teacher in particular delighted in exacerbating my fears. If your kid comes home and says their teacher is mocking them or making things worse you should listen. If you work in a school next door to someone who seems a little “off” say something. It is possible they are not a bad teacher, but are instead exhausted from dealing with trauma responses in their classroom.
Kids like me are maddening at school. We can act out. Talk too much. Not talk at all. Wander. Sleep. Cry. Argue constantly. Demand to sit somewhere else. Feel sick all the time. Throw up with out warning. Pee our pants well into late elementary school. React violently to small provocations. Cling. Hide. Run. We are not easy kids to have in your classroom, or we vacillate between the easiest kid ever with occasional outbursts and are forgotten until the test scores come and we are “intentionally trying to hurt the teacher by doing poorly”.
And do you want to know a secret- that’s exactly what I did. I intentionally failed to make her look bad. I am not sorry. 11 year old me had no other effective path of resistance and I could tell it mattered to her- a lot.
The backdrop to all of this was escalating violence surrounding the Libyan Missile Crisis. Children of US service members were targets for the terroristic responses to military actions. There were bombings and sniper attacks near places I frequented, and bomb threats to our school. Three bells meant run. Grab the little kids’ hands, and run. Look for your evacuation buddy, and run. Watch for your grownup friends who guard your bus and the doors downstairs to show you where to hide. Trust them to tell you where to run. This experience was worse once you’d heard a bomb go off somewhere else (like the hotel you were staying at) and seen people running and screaming to get away from it. Or worse.
One day we had to evacuate before “local culture” class, which was my favorite. The teacher* was very old (probably 60) and treated all of us like her grandkids. The classroom looked like a living room and was full of big soft rugs, crocheted blankets, stuffed animals, musical instruments we could play with and she always had hostess cupcakes for us. Her son was going to bring his bouzouki and teach us a dance for Christmas. *Shout out to Mrs. P. I sure loved you and I’m sorry we made fun of your enormous chin mole behind your back. I think you knew and loved us anyway.
Once we were allowed back in the building I was angry they canceled this class because Mrs. P’s son couldn’t come onsite, and complained loudly well past the point I should have stopped.
You know what my teacher said? This is a grown up problem, and you don’t understand it. Go sit down and get back to work.
Why the hell can’t the grownups leave us out of it. I want to go to culture class and learn a dance for Christmas. I remember flushing at using the word “hell” in my brain, and then deciding I didn’t feel sorry about that either.
Adult me has been accused of callous disregard for world events when I press forward with whatever I had planned or promised, especially if kids and/or joy are involved. It’s not their fault, dammit. If I can safely give them the joy I’d promised we’re going to do it. We might modify it, or accommodate for circumstances and feelings but I won't cancel happiness just because adults can't live together civilly.
You’ll see this in my social media presence too. Sometimes I forget that not everyone spits in the face of hate by having a normal day and it comes off the wrong way. I see this in younger people more and more too, and try to support them in the effort when I can.
It’s going to show up somewhere
Around the same time as the bombings I started having raging tantrums at home. I still carry a great deal of shame around this, and I think this is probably the first time I’ve talked about it publicly. Think toddler level kicking and screaming, snotty nose, throwing things and yelling. My very good parents were at a loss.
My grades suffered well into high school in math and science. I was tired and could no longer compensate for the dyslexia with hours of extra study.
The doctor said it was probably migraines.
No easy answers, hard conversations
The global majority has grappled with struggling kids for years in response to violence and fear inflicted on their children at school. We’re hearing more about trauma behavior response now because it’s showing up in places and people it hasn’t before. It grates against biased opinions about why certain kids act out they way they do. That’s not right, but it is pretty typical for America.
What I hope to cause is a pause in your reaction next time you read about a student or young adults acting out, or when you participate in discussion about how we approach the way fear and violence is handled in schools.
I am talking about this even though my experience is mild compared to many because I’m a middle class white women. People like me who have school trauma as kids and end up successful (if a bit quirky and opinionated) are admired for speaking up even if some of the men around us can’t stand it. Not so for most other groups.
High dose tutoring, AI assisted personal chatbots, extended school hours, EdTech fanciness, science of reading, and turn around programs don’t mean crap if kids are afraid at school. I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but there’s a lot to be afraid of.
Little minds take in more than we think, hide it better than we assume, make incorrect assumptions and carry it in ways that mark them forever. Caring adults must step in to help them and their families if we hope to turn the tide of a failing education system.